Mental Illness in Art

[ayoitsStepho]

In December I am putting on my Senior Art Show to end my four years of schooling to obtain a Studio Art degree. I want to express the inner workings of people with different mental illness in a visual way so that the viewers of my work will gain insight, thus, hopefully, giving people awareness of the reality of such illnesses. I have been struggling to find a good way to do this and wanted to ask the TypeC community if anyone has any ideas or if you all have seen art work dealing with the same subject so I can draw inspiration?

Thank you all!

 

[rav3n]

Do you wish sympathetic art? Or something more controversial?

 

[skylights]

Oh, that sounds like such a potentially incredible project. My first thought is that photos of people with mental illness and the situations in which they struggle would be captivating. I think the public tends to see mental illness as foreign and removed, when the truth of it is much closer to home. I wish I had more ideas or references to share but I mostly just want to say I love the idea and I think it could be a really positive and empowering project.

 

[prplchknz]

there's really good thing going around facebook, it's more a photography project but maybe you could look at it and get idea. Liz Obert: Dualities looks at the hidden and visible worlds of people living with mental illness (PHOTOS).


you've probably seen it.

 

[Kayness]

Perhaps you could study van Gogh's work, too? Some of them, like the Wheat Field piece, was painted when he was in asylum and it really shows.